


Patience of Angels

by dickviolin



Category: Ackley Bridge (TV)
Genre: I guess????, Kid Fic, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 08:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15659556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dickviolin/pseuds/dickviolin
Summary: Am I using a Fairground Attraction song as the title of this? Yeah, why not.This one goes out to the Ackley Bridge Discord server, for ruining my life and kinkshaming me. Love you all!In which Cory is kept up all night by Jamie...and his demons (dun dun).Hit me up onTumblr





	Patience of Angels

It was three in the morning. He’d been gnawing on the crust of a pizza for half an hour now, and he was so tired his hands were starting to buzz, and- swear down- he’d just seen something move behind the telly. Or his eyes were lying to him. He wanted a drink, he wanted a smoke, but he was terrified to leave the sitting room. It was covered in empty pizza boxes and plates lined with congealed chip grease and a mug with more skin than hot chocolate. On the sofa, tucked between a stack of schoolbooks and an oversized teddy bear that had been Jordan’s when he was little, was a car seat, and ensconced in a bundle of blankets and a onesie was a tiny, red-faced, screaming baby.

His son.

Three in the morning.

 

Candice had dropped him off at seven. He’d screamed and sworn and yelled after her- effed and jeffed, as Mr Bell would have put it- but it was no use: she was gone. Out with the girls, had she said? Needed a night off? Just wanted Cory to suffer? Well, he was suffering now. And whatever she was doing, wherever she was, he hoped she was having a properly shit time too.

 

He- Jamie- had been crying like this since 11 PM, which meant they were now on the four-hour mark. Cory had no idea what to do. It wasn’t like he’d gone to the NCT classes, or read ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’. He’d never been around the baby on his own before. His name wasn’t even on the birth certificate. He wasn’t a dad except in the sense that he’d contributed a bit of his genetic material to making this tiny, red, screaming creature. And yet, here he was, at 3 AM, hands fisted in his hair, teeth clenched together, on the verge of tears himself, with no idea what the _actual fucking fuck_ he could possibly do to get this baby to go the _fuck_ to sleep.

 

Naveed sounded sleepy, which made sense, because he’d been woken up in the middle of the night. Cory felt bad. Well, almost. At least Naveed had _been_ asleep.

“Wha’?”

“Need you come round,” Cory said. He tried to keep his voice even. Tried, and failed.

“Y’what?”

“Candice- Jamie- he won’t stop- he’s- I don’t know what to do.”

A pause. A sigh. A long, deep, sigh. Then, “All right. Give me twenty minutes.”

 

They _had_ spoken since the whole incident- capital ‘I’ in Cory’s head, usually surrounded by stage lights and lit up in neon, as well- but not much. Not as much as they’d spoken before. Riz had noticed, because he wasn’t stupid, but he hadn’t said anything, because- well, because he wasn’t stupid. They’d taken turns holding his can of coke up to his face when he decided his arms didn’t work either, and the other day Nav had asked him for a pencil, but that was it. It hadn’t been the best week of his life.

 

He waited on the sofa, sitting perched on the edge, biting his thumbnail, and tried not to panic. This might have been the stupidest thing he’d ever done. He should have called Candice, or even- God knows, even Missy Booth would have been a better choice than Naveed. But no, he’d made his bed, and now it was time to lie in it.

Nav let himself in. He was half an hour, not twenty minutes, and Cory had stared up at the clock on the mantlepiece and wondered if he’d just turned over and gone back to bed. But then, there he was, in an old t-shirt, a plastic bag in either hand, looking tired and mardy and like everything Cory wanted, all at once.

“Could hear this little fella crying from the top of the street,” Nav said, by way of greeting. He dropped the stuff on the sofa next to Cory and scooped Jamie up into his arms. “Pair of lungs on him, eh?” Cory watched him hold the baby out in front of him, appraising him. “Bedtime, I reckon, mate,” he said at last, with a firmness and self-assurance that made Cory feel like everything might be OK, if he just kept looking at Naveed.

Or not, he thought, looking at Nav had never done him any good.

 

“Right,” Nav said, breaking Cory’s reverie. “He needs feeding and changing. I take it Candice didn’t leave anything. You’re lucky the Aldi on Bowers Lane’s open twenty-four hours.” Cory peered into the bags. Nappies, wipes, talcum powder, a bottle, a box of formula, a dummy. He felt his heart lift. He got up, went for the bottle to start mixing the formula, or the nappies to change him, or the dummy so he could hear himself think for five fucking minutes, but Nav put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sit down, mate. With the best will in the world, you’ll just get in the way.”

“Since when were you supernanny?” Cory replied, sinking back down onto the sofa and trying to will his headache away. “You’re an only child.”

“Massive desi family, innit? This isn’t my first rodeo.” With that, Naveed hooked the bags over his arm and went off into the kitchen. Jamie’s screams faded away, and Cory shut his eyes for a moment, just to rest them, just to stop the pounding behind his temples.

 

“Y’right, mate?” Naveed’s hand on his shoulder again, and it was warm, and he opened his eyes, and he was standing over him, wide-eyed, a smile opening his face up wide. “He’s out for the count.”

Cory looked over and sure enough, wrapped up in his blankets, was Jamie, sleeping silently, his little chest rising and falling. His son. Peaceful at last.

“Thanks,” Cory said, because there was nothing else to say.

Naveed shrugged. “It’s fine. C’mon, off to bed for you, too.” Cory allowed Nav to pull him up by the hand and to drag him down the hall, up the stairs and into his room. They stood at the door, and the feeling hung in the air. Every touch, every tiny sound, the way Nav had clung onto his upper arms for dear life, the way it felt to bury his face in his neck, above his bony shoulder. The silence, like dust.

“I’ll be off,” Naveed said. Cory felt a tightly-wound coil snap.

“Don’t,” he said. He wasn’t facing him, but he could see his shadow in the mirror. “Don’t go.”

“All right,” Naveed said, “I’ll stay.”

 

They pulled off their clothes, stripped down to their boxers, squished up together in Cory’s narrow single bed. Cory felt Nav’s skinny, warm frame curl round his, and his freezing cold toes brushing his ankles. They said nothing for a long time.

“I know I said-”

“Yeah.” Nav’s voice was blurry with exhaustion.

“But I- look, I don’t know much, but I know I love you.”

Naveed curled tighter round him and Cory stretched an arm over his back to pull him in. Tomorrow they would talk about it. Tomorrow they would be honest with each other. Tomorrow it would all be said.

“I love you too,” Nav said, and the night swallowed them up.

**Author's Note:**

> NB: Do not leave a baby on its own to have an emotional moment with your best friend, unless you have a reliable baby monitor. This is parenting advice from Liam, who has one (1) nephew


End file.
